Extensive searches (in
Zentralblatt and MathSciNet) on published papers about Networks and
Heterogeneous Media 2000-present, showed something like 450 papers/yr about
networks, 50/yr about multiscale problems, 100/yr about porous media and 25/yr
about heterogeneous media. This is a motivation to launch a new journal focused
on Networks and Heterogeneous Media.

There are three main features of this journal:

1.Interdisciplinary Character;

2.Specific Focus;

3.Mathematical Core (Deep Mathematical
Content).

Clearly there are a number of
existing journals sharing some of these features. However, the new journal will
offer a unique strong combination of i)--iii). For example, SIAM MMS, Comm. In
Math. Sci. and Arch. Rat. Mech. and An., which are somehow close in spirit to
our journal, definitely have strong presence of aspects i) and iii), but they are
not as specifically focused. On the other hand, journals such as Transp. Porus
Media and Mass Transf. Stat. Phys. are interdisciplinary focused on specific
applications, but do not address a wide range of fundamental mathematical
issues.

This journal also aims at
creating a link between the discrete and the continuous communities, which
distinguishes it from other journals with strong PDE orientation.

It is expected that research on
Networks and Heterogeneous Media, motivated by wide range of applications (such
as traffic flows, internet network, bio-medical problems, filtration, granular
flow etc...), will be one of the most challenging direction in future
mathematical research and will result in the development of new fundamental
mathematics.

Aims & Scope

The proposed journal aims at
attracting original contributions to solve problems on networks and
heterogeneous media , and more generally in complicated framework. This journal
would be a breeding ground for research in an area which is presently dispersed
across a range of statistical physics, applied mathematics, engineering,
biology and medical journals.

While the classical modelling
and analysis approach is efficient for systems evolving on Euclidean spaces or
manifolds, many recent applications require the development of mathematical
tools for state spaces with a more complicated structure, such as a fractal, a
stratified set or a topological graph or, in the case of many interacting
evolutions, for a collection of different state spaces. These special
structures arise naturally in a number of applied problems ranging from
mechanical ones as for the static and dynamics of granular media to biological
ones as vessels pattern formation in angiogenesis.

NHM is thus devoted to the
presentation of original basic and applied research work on the mathematical,
physical, engineering, biological and bio-medical aspects of problems on
complicated media such as: macroscopic evolutions in complex and random media,
multiphase flows in porous media, chemical reactions, biological flows,
mechanical and biological properties of tissues, homogenization limits in
elastic materials, currents in micronic and submicronic electronic devices, as
well as phenomena which occur in networks, such as vehicle traffic or data
traffic in the internet. Mass transfer and its interaction with hydrodynamic
descriptions of flows is also of considerable interest.

The main focus is on
macroscopic models and dynamics, but it will be also of interest to take into account
ideas arising from the micro- and mesoscopic levels of description and to
steady state solutions and equilibria.

The emphasis of the journal
Networks and Heterogeneous Media is on modelling, analysis, control, numerics
and simulations, and applications. Occasionally, invited state of the art
reviews are included when they provide a solid background for future research.